Some users experience a condition where they select an ad to play which has the generic blue “play” icon, and a blank black box shows up, sometimes with a “play” button on it. Clicking the play button doesn’t help start the ad. More recently they may happen for some users that are attempting to go through the new user orientation.
Ads that have the generic blue “play” button are ads that are streamed from various advertising partners. They use ad streaming protocols that don’t allow us to even know what ad is coming until it is there (which is why we have to use the generic icon). These ads are played last after all direct ads in Varolo that have been targeted to you have been viewed. Direct ads are those advertisers that have loaded their ads directly into the Varolo system rather than streaming them from an advertising partner.
The condition above is almost always associated with these streaming ads. Unfortunately we have little control over this process which makes it difficult to troubleshoot. There are 2 scenarios that exist.
Scenario 1: You have been able to watch blue “Play” ads in the past, but you can’t right now.
Scenario 2: You have never been able to see a single blue “Play” ad ever on the system you are using.
Lets discuss the options for each scenario.
Scenario 1: You have been able to watch blue “Play” ads in the past, but you can’t right now.
If you can’t watch those streamin ads right now, just log off and wait a few minutes or log in a few hours later. There may be a temporary glitch with the ad streaming. Sometimes this is a bad ad that isn’t formatted correctly that causes the hang up. Other times they attempt to deliver an ad but it fails for any number of reasons. We appologize for the inconvience, but we have little control over this. The good news is that as Varolo becomes more and more popular for direct advertisers, you will see fewer and fewer of the streaming ads an evntually we won’t use them at all. In the mean time, it is necessary to have these streaming ads in the system and appologize for problems they sometimes cause. The best thing to do is just wait and try back later.
Scenario 2: You have never been able to see a single blue “Play” ad ever on the system you are using.
If you have never seen a streaming ad (those from a blue “play” button), then there is a more serious issue. In many cases the condition can be resolved, BUT NOT ALWAYS. Here are a few suggestions you may want to try to resolve the issue.
1) Your browser needs to be upgraded. Please use the newest version of IE, Firefox or Chrome to have the best experience. WE DO NOT SUPPORT OPERA.
2) You are outside the geographies that currently have ads playing.
3) Your internet connection is too slow and some of the ads are timing out before they can get to you OR you are using satellite which often manipulates the data stream breaking the video play.
4) Those using ad blocker software or have enabled the ad blocking feature in the browser may not see ads. Unblock this for varolo.com.
5) Some users have found that if they remove all of the channels selected from their channel guide (except the general channel) they can get the ads with the blue “play” button to run. If you do this, you may get lots of repeat ads, but you will be able to see ads.
If you have verified that none of these steps help you, unfortunately we don’t have a good solution at this time. There does seem to be a few people (not many at all) that should be able to get ads but still can’t. You will want to try back and ensure it isn’t a temporary problem, but if the condition remains constant, our only suggestion (which we know isn’t a good one) is to wait until we have more direct advertisers in the system which eliminate the need for streaming ads. We sincerely appologize for this issue. You can’t imagine the number of hours and resources that have gone into trying to troubleshoot this, but there is no single cause for this condition and it has been terribly difficult to resolve. We will continue to work on resolving this issue, and if so, we will update this blog post with further information.
Our technical support team will not be able to help you get this resolved individually. As we get hundreds of technical support emails each day, we will not be responding to individual situations as they are described in this email.
The Varolo Team